Illustration by Sajan Rai

In The Treaty of Finsbury Park , we are catapulted several years into the future where all the species of the park have risen up to demand equal rights with humans. After much unrest, it has been agreed that a treaty will be drawn up, designating these rights, but first humans must learn to better relate to and understand non-humans so they can cooperate better together. Thankfully there has been a new invention – The Sentience Dial – which allows humans to tune into all the flora and fauna of Finsbury Park.”

The Treaty of Finsbury Park is a collaborative immersive game series that depicts the story of the dawning of interspecies democracy. Participants play AS other species. It’s a new era of equal rights for all living beings, where all species come together to organise and shape the environments and cultures they inhabit, in Finsbury Park (and urban green spaces across the UK, the world, and beyond!) Like many urban parks, Finsbury Park is fraught with environmental issues from noxious gasses and traffic noises to governance struggles and financial sustainability. If colonial systems of dominance and control over living beings continue we all face an apocalypse.

Based around a set of online and in-park LARPs – or live action role play games – the Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 is played from more-than-human perspectives to encourage the blooming of a bountiful biodiversity and interspecies political action. Think like a dog, bee or even grass and help change the way we all see and participate in our local urban green spaces forever.

More About The Treaty of Finsbury Park

The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025 is a major project exploring new ways to build empathy pathways to non-human lifeforms through play.

It represents a major undertaking to do long-term work exploring how an arts organisation based in the heart of an urban green space can support a deeper understanding of that green space and ALL its inhabitants. Beginning in 2020 and spanning a minimum of 5 years, the work was originally developed in a collaboration between Furtherfield and The New Design Congress. The first 3 years are being supported by CreaTures Creative Practices for Transformational Futures. CreaTures project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759. The content presented represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect of the content.

Credits
Concept by Cade Diem and Ruth Catlow
Artistic Direction by Ruth Catlow
Visual design by Cade Diem
Illustrations by Sajan Rai
LARP Design and Hosting by Ruth Catlow, Bea Xu and Max Dovey
LARP Player Assistance by Yejide Cordner
LARP Player Support by Lekey Leideker and Tanya Boyarkina
Writing by Ruth Catlow and Dr Charlotte Frost
Music by Matt Catlow
Digital Mask animation by PopulAR
Research by CreaTures, stewarded by Dr Lara Houston and Dr Ann Light
Production support for prototype LARPs by Tanya Boyarkina
Outreach for prototype LARPs by Pita Arreola

Thanks to our first players: Shawn, Carien, Anne, Tom and Ricard.
Special thanks to Ricard, Finsbury Park Ranger for introducing us to all the different lives of the park

Thanks to all online Interspecies Assemblies players – you know who you are – 🐶 WOOF!

Additional Media

• Visit the project website
• Light, A. (2023) ‘In Dialogue with the More-than-Human: Affective Prefiguration in Encounters with Others’ interactions, 30(4), pp. 24–27.
• Accidental Gods podcast (Manda Scott) with Ruth Catlow. Becoming a Stag Beetle! Living the Interspecies Treaty of Finsbury Park (2023)
• Frontiers of Commoning (David Bollier) with Ruth Catlow Ruth Catlow of Furtherfield: Art, Play and the Imagining of New Worlds (2022)
• Concept paper On systems, ecologies as networks, colonialism and seizing rituals of power (2020)
• Furtherfield Podcast – Ruth Catlow and Cade Diehm in conversation (2020)
• Ruth Catlow and Cade Diehm in conversation with Dr. Lara Houston  at IAM Weekend Planet Earth 18 November 2021

Supporters and Partners